'I hope so! I trust so!' said Honora, almost mournfully. 'It may be very good for her, as I believe it is for every woman of any soundness, to be taught that her follies tell upon man's greater aims and purposes. It may be wholesome for her and a check, but—'

Phoebe wondered that her friend paused and looked so sad.

'Oh! Phoebe,' said Honora, after a moment's silence, speaking fervently, 'if you can in any way do so, warn your brother against making an idol! Let nothing come between him and the direct devotion of will and affection to the Higher Service. If he decide on the one or the other, let it be from duty, not with respect to anything else. I do not suppose it is of any use to warn him,' she added, with the tears in her eyes. 'Every one sets the whole soul upon some one object, not the right, and then comes the shipwreck.'

'Dear Robin!' said Phoebe. 'He is so good! I am sure he always thinks first of what is right. But I think I see what you mean. If he undertake the business, it should be as a matter of obedience to papa, not to keep Lucy in the great world. And, indeed, I do not think my father does care much, only he would like the additional capital; and Robert is so much more steady than Mervyn, that he would be more useful. Perhaps it would make him more important at home; no one there has any interest in common with him; and I think that moves him a little; but, after all, those do not seem reasons for not giving himself to God's service,' she finished, reverently and considerately.

'No, indeed!' cried Miss Charlecote.

'Then you think he ought not to change his mind?'

'You have thought so all along,' smiled Honor.

'I did not like it,' said Phoebe, 'but I did not know if I were right. I did tell him that I really believed Lucy would think the more highly of him if he settled for himself without reference to her.'

'You did! You were a capital little adviser, Phoebe! A woman worthy to be loved at all had always rather be set second instead of first:—

"I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more."

That is the true spirit, and I am glad you judged Lucy to be capable of it. Keep your brother up to that, and all may be well!'

'I believe Robert knows it all the time,' said Phoebe. 'He always is right at the bottom; but his feelings get so much tried that he does not know how to bear it! I hope Lucy will be kind to him if they meet in London, for he has been so much harassed that he wants some comfort from her. If she would only be in earnest!'

'Does he go to London, at all events?'

'He has promised to attend to the office in Great Whittington-street for a month, by way of experiment.'

'I'll tell you what, Phoebe,' cried Honora, radiantly, 'you and I will go too! You shall come with me to Woolstone-lane, and Robin shall be with us every day; and we will try and make this silly Lucy into a rational being.'

'Oh! Miss Charlecote, thank you—thank you.' The quiet girl's face and neck were all one crimson glow of delight.

'If you can sleep in a little brown cupboard of a room in the very core of the City's heart.'

'Delightful! I have so wished to see that house. Owen has told me such things about it. Oh, thank you, Miss Charlecote!'

'Have you ever seen anything in London?'

'Never. We hardly ever go with the rest; and if we do, we only walk in the square. What a holiday it will be!'

'We will see everything, and do it justice. I'll get an order for the print-room at the British Museum. I day say Robin never saw it either; and what a treat it will be to take you to the Egyptian Gallery!' cried Honora, excited into looking at the expedition in the light of a party of pleasure, as she saw happiness beaming in the young face opposite.

They built up their schemes in the open window, pausing to listen to the nightingales, who, having ceased for two hours, apparently for supper, were now in full song, echoing each other in all the woods of Hiltonbury, casting over it a network of sweet melody. Honora was inclined to regret leaving them in their glory; but Phoebe, with the world before her, was too honest to profess poetry which she did not feel. Nightingales were all very well in their place, but the first real sight of London was more.

The lamp came in, and Phoebe held out her hands for something to do, and was instantly provided with a child's frock, while Miss Charlecote read to her one of Fouque's shorter tales by way of supplying the element of chivalrous imagination which was wanting in the Beauchamp system of education.

So warm was the evening, that the window remained open, until Ponto erected his crest as a footfall came steadily along, nearer and nearer. Uplifting one of his pendant lips, he gave a low growl through his blunted teeth, and listened again; but apparently satisfied that the step was familiar, he replaced his head on his crossed paws, and presently Robert Fulmort's head and the upper part of his person, in correct evening costume, were thrust in at the window, the moonlight making his face look very white, as he said, 'Come, Phoebe, make haste; it is very late.'

'Is it?' cried Phoebe, springing up; 'I thought I had only been here an hour.'

'Three, at least,' said Robert, yawning; 'six by my feelings. I could not get away, for Mr. Crabbe stayed to dinner; Mervyn absented himself, and my father went to sleep.'

'Robin, only think, Miss Charlecote is so kind as to say she will take me to London!'

'It is very kind,' said Robert, warmly, his weary face and voice suddenly relieved.

'I shall be delighted to have a companion,' said Honora; 'and I reckon upon you too, Robin, whenever you can spare time from your work. Come in, and let us talk it over.'

'Thank you, I can't. The dragon will fall on Phoebe if I keep her out too late. Be quick, Phoebe.'

While his sister went to fetch her hat, he put his elbows on the sill, and leaning into the room, said, 'Thank you again; it will be a wonderful treat to her, and she has never had one in her life!'

'I was in hopes she would have gone to Germany.'

'It is perfectly abominable! It is all the others' doing! They know no one would look at them a second time if anything so much younger and pleasanter was by! They think her coming out would make them look older. I know it would make them look crosser.'

Laughing was the only way to treat this tirade, knowing, as Honor did, that there was but too much truth in it. She said, however, 'Yet one could hardly wish Phoebe other than she is. The rosebud keeps its charm longer in the shade.'

'I like justice,' quoth Robert.

'And,' she continued, 'I really think that she is much benefited by this formidable governess. Accuracy and solidity and clearness of head are worth cultivating.'

'Nasty latitudinarian piece of machinery,' said Robert, with his fingers over his mouth, like a sulky child.

'Maybe so; but you guard Phoebe, and she guards Bertha; and whatever your sense of injustice may be, this surely is a better school for her than gaieties as yet.'

'It will be a more intolerable shame than ever if they will not let her go with you.'

'Too intolerable to be expected,' smiled Honora. 'I shall come and beg for her to-morrow, and I do not believe I shall be disappointed.'

She spoke with the security of one not in the habit of having her patronage obstructed by relations; and Phoebe coming down with renewed thanks, the brother and sister started on their way home in the moonlight—the one plodding on moodily, the other, unable to repress her glee, bounding on in a succession of little skips, and pirouetting round to clap her hands, and exclaim, 'Oh! Robin, is it not delightful?'

'If they will let you go,' said he, too desponding for hope.

'Do you think they will not?' said Phoebe, with slower and graver steps. 'Do you really think so? But no! It can't lead to coming out; and I know they like me to be happy when it interferes with nobody.'

'Great generosity,' said Robert, dryly.

'Oh, but, Robin, you know elder ones come first.'

'A truth we are not likely to forget,' said Robert. 'I wish my uncle had been sensible of it. That legacy of his stands between Mervyn and me, and will never do me any good.'

'I don't understand,' said Phoebe; 'Mervyn has always been completely the eldest son.'

'Ay,' returned Robert, 'and with the tastes of an eldest son. His allowance does not suffice for them, and he does not like to see me independent. If my uncle had only been contented to let us share and share alike, then my father would have had no interest in drawing me into the precious gin and brandy manufacture.'

'You did not think he meant to make it a matter of obedience,' said Phoebe.

'No; he could hardly do that after the way he has brought me up, and what we have been taught all our lives about liberty of the individual, absence of control, and the like jargon.'

'Then you are not obliged?'

He made no answer, and they walked on in silence across the silvery lawn, the maythorns shining out like flaked towers of snow in the moonlight, and casting abyss-like shadows, the sky of the most deep and intense blue, and the carols of the nightingales ringing around them. Robert paused when he had passed through the gate leading into the dark path down-hill through the wood, and setting his elbows on it, leant over it, and looked back at the still and beautiful scene, in all the white mystery of moonlight, enhanced by the white-blossomed trees and the soft outlines of slumbering sheep. One of the birds, in a bush close to them, began prolonging its drawn-in notes in a continuous prelude, then breaking forth into a varied complex warbling, so wondrous that there was no moving till the creature paused.

It seemed to have been a song of peace to Robert, for he gave a long but much softer sigh, and pushed back his hat, saying, 'All good things dwell on the Holt side of the boundary.'

'A sort of Sunday world,' said Phoebe.

'Yes; after this wood one is in another atmosphere.'

'Yet you have carried your cares there, poor Robin.'

'So one does into Sunday, but to get another light thrown on them. The Holt has been the blessing of my life—of both our lives, Phoebe.'

She responded with all her heart. 'Yes, it has made everything happier, at home and everywhere else. I never can think why Lucilla is not more fond of it.'

'You are mistaken,' exclaimed Robert; 'she loves no place so well; but you don't consider what claims her relations have upon her. That cousin Horatia, to whom she is so much attached, losing both her parents, how could she do otherwise than be with her?'

'Miss Charteris does not seem to be in great trouble now,' said Phoebe.

'You do not consider; you have never seen grief, and you do not know how much more a sympathizing friend is needed when the world supposes the sorrow to be over, and ordinary habits to be resumed.'

Phoebe was willing to believe him right, though considering that Horatia Charteris lived with her brother and his wife, she could hardly be as lonely as Miss Charlecote.

'We shall see Lucy in London,' she said.

Robert again sighed heavily. 'Then it will be over,' he said. 'Did you say anything there?' he pursued, as they plunged into the dark shadows of the woodland path, more congenial to the subject than the light.

'Yes, I did,' said Phoebe.

'And she thought me a weak, unworthy wretch for ever dreaming of swerving from my original path.'

'No!' said Phoebe, 'not if it were your duty.'

'I tell you, Phoebe, it is as much my duty to consult Lucilla's happiness as if any words had passed between us. I have never pledged myself to take Orders. It has been only a wish, not a vocation; and if she have become averse to the prospect of a quiet country life, it would not be treating her fairly not to give her the choice of comparative wealth, though procured by means her family might despise.'

'Yes, I knew you would put right and duty first; and I suppose by doing so you make it certain to end rightly, one way or other.'

'A very few years, and I could realize as much as this Calthorp, the millionaire, whom they talk of as being so often at the Charterises.'

'It will not be so,' said Phoebe. 'I know what she will say;' and as Robert looked anxiously at her, she continued—

'She will say she never dreamt of your being turned from anything so great by any fancies she has seemed to have. She will say so more strongly, for you know her father was a clergyman, and Miss Charlecote brought her up.'

Phoebe's certainty made Robert catch something of her hopes.

'In that case,' he said, 'matters might be soon settled. This fortune of mine would be no misfortune then; and probably, Phoebe, my sisters would have no objection to your being happy with us.'

'As soon as you could get a curacy! Oh, how delightful! and Maria and Bertha would come too.'

Robert held his peace, not certain whether Lucilla would consider Maria an embellishment to his ideal parsonage; but they talked on with cheerful schemes while descending through the wood, unlocking a gate that formed the boundary between the Holt and the Beauchamp properties, crossing a field or two, and then coming out into the park. Presently they were in sight of the house, rising darkly before them, with many lights shining in the windows behind the blinds.

'They are all gone up-stairs!' said Phoebe, dismayed. 'How late it must be!'

'There's a light in the smoking-room,' said Robert; 'we can get in that way.'

'No, no! Mervyn may have some one with him. Come in quietly by the servants' entrance.'

No danger that people would not be on foot there! As the brother and sister moved along the long stone passage, fringed with labelled bells, one open door showed two weary maidens still toiling over the plates of the late dinner; and another, standing ajar, revealed various men-servants regaling themselves; and words and tones caught Robert's ear making his brow lower with sudden pain.

Phoebe was proceeding to mount the stone stairs, when a rustling and chattering, as of maids descending, caused her and her brother to stand aside to make way, and down came a pair of heads and candles together over a green bandbox, and then voices in vulgar tones half suppressed. 'I couldn't venture it, not with Miss Juliana—but Miss Fulmort—she never looks over her bills, nor knows what is in her drawers—I told her it was faded, when she had never worn it once!'

And tittering, they passed by the brother and sister, who were still unseen, but Robert heaved a sigh and murmured, 'Miserable work!' somewhat to his sister's surprise, for to her the great ill-regulated household was an unquestioned institution, and she did not expect him to bestow so much compassion on Augusta's discarded bonnet. At the top of the steps they opened a door, and entered a great wide hall. All was exceedingly still. A gas-light was burning over the fire-place, but the corners were in gloom, and the coats and cloaks looked like human figures in the distance. Phoebe waited while Robert lighted her candle for her. Albeit she was not nervous, she started when a door was sharply pushed open, and another figure appeared; but it was nothing worse than her brother Mervyn, in easy costume, and redolent of tobacco.

About three years older than Robert, he was more neatly though not so strongly made, shorter, and with more regular features, but much less countenance. If the younger brother had a worn and dejected aspect, the elder, except in moments of excitement, looked bored. It was as if Robert really had the advantage of him in knowing what to be out of spirits about.

'Oh! it's you, is it?' said he, coming forward, with a sauntering, scuffling movement in his slippers. 'You larking, Phoebe? What next?'

'I have been drinking tea with Miss Charlecote,' explained Phoebe.

Mervyn slightly shrugged his shoulders, murmuring something about 'Lively pastime.'

'I could not fetch her sooner,' said Robert, 'for my father went to sleep, and no one chose to be at the pains of entertaining Crabbe.'

'Ay—a prevision of his staying to dinner made me stay and dine with the —th mess. Very sagacious—eh, Pheebe?' said he, turning, as if he liked to look into her fresh face.

'Too sagacious,' said she, smiling; 'for you left him all to Robert.'

Manner and look expressed that this was a matter of no concern, and he said ungraciously: 'Nobody detained Robert, it was his own concern.'

'Respect to my father and his guests,' said Robert, with downright gravity that gave it the effect of a reproach.

Mervyn only raised his shoulders up to his ears in contempt, took up his candle, and wished Phoebe good night.

Poor Mervyn Fulmort! Discontent had been his life-long comrade. He detested his father's occupation as galling to family pride, yet was greedy both of the profits and the management. He hated country business and country life, yet chafed at not having the control of his mother's estate, and grumbled at all his father's measures. 'What should an old distiller know of landed property?' In fact he saw the same difference between himself and his father as did the ungracious Plantagenet between the son of a Count and the son of a King: and for want of Provencal troubadours with whom to rebel, he supplied their place by the turf and the billiard-table. At present he was expiating some heavy debts by a forced residence with his parents, and unwilling attention to the office, a most distasteful position, which he never attempted to improve, and which permitted him both the tedium of idleness and complaints against all the employment to which he was necessitated.

The ill-managed brothers were just nearly enough of an age for rivalry, and had never loved one another even as children. Robert's steadiness had been made a reproach to Mervyn, and his grave, rather surly character had never been conciliating. The independence left to the younger brother by their mother's relative was grudged by the elder as an injury to himself, and it was one of the misfortunes of Beauchamp that the two sons had never been upon happy terms together. Indeed, save that Robert's right principles and silent habits hindered him from readily giving or taking offence, there might have been positive outbreaks of a very unbrotherly nature.



CHAPTER II

Enough of science and of art, Close up those barren leaves! Come forth, and bring with you a heart That watches and receives.—WORDSWORTH

'Half-past five, Miss Phoebe.'

'Thank you;' and before her eyes were open, Phoebe was on the floor.

Six was the regulation hour. Systematic education had discovered that half-an-hour was the maximum allowable for morning toilette, and at half-past six the young ladies must present themselves in the school-room.

The Bible, Prayer Book, and 'Daily Meditations' could have been seldom touched, had not Phoebe, ever since Robert had impressed on her the duty of such constant study, made an arrangement for gaining an extra half-hour. Cold mornings and youthful sleepiness had received a daily defeat: and, mayhap, it was such a course of victory that made her frank eyes so blithesome, and her step so free and light.

That bright scheme, too, shone before her, as such a secret of glad hope, that, knowing how uncertain were her chances of pleasure, she prayed that she might not set her heart on it. It was no trifle to her, and her simple spirit ventured to lay her wishes before her loving Father in Heaven, and entreat that she might not be denied, if it were right for her and would be better for Robert; or, if not, that she might be good under the disappointment.

Her orisons sent her forth all brightness, with her small head raised like that of a young fawn, her fresh lips parted by an incipient smile of hope, and her cheeks in a rosy glow of health, a very Hebe, as Mr. Saville had once called her.

Such a morning face as hers was not always met by Miss Fennimore, who, herself able to exist on five hours' sleep, had no mercy on that of her pupils; and she rewarded Phoebe's smiling good-morrow with 'This is better than I expected, you returned home so late.'

'Robert could not come for me early,' said Phoebe.

'How did you spend the evening?'

'Miss Charlecote read aloud to me. It was a delightful German story.'

'Miss Charlecote is a very well-informed person, and I am glad the time was not absolutely lost. I hope you observed the condensation of the vapours on your way home.'

'Robert was talking to me, and the nightingales were singing.'

'It is a pity,' said Miss Fennimore, not unkindly, 'that you should not cultivate the habit of observation. Women can seldom theorize, but they should always observe facts, as these are the very groundwork of discovery, and such a rare opportunity as a walk at night should not be neglected.'

It was no use to plead that this was all very well when there was no brother Robert with his destiny in the scales, so Phoebe made a meek assent, and moved to the piano, suppressing a sigh as Miss Fennimore set off on a domiciliary visit to the other sisters.

Mr. Fulmort liked his establishment to prove his consequence, and to the old family mansion of the Mervyns he had added a whole wing for the educational department. Above, there was a passage, with pretty little bed-rooms opening from it; below there were two good-sized rooms, with their own door opening into the garden. The elder ones had long ago deserted it, and so completely shut off was it from the rest of the house, that the governess and her pupils were as secluded as though in a separate dwelling. The schoolroom was no repulsive-looking abode; it was furnished almost well enough for a drawing-room; and only the easels, globes, and desks, the crayon studies on the walls, and a formidable time-table showed its real destination.

The window looked out into a square parterre, shut in with tall laurel hedges, and filled with the gayest and sweetest blossoms. It was Mrs. Fulmort's garden for cut flowers; supplying the bouquets that decked her tables, or were carried to wither at balls; and there were three long, narrow beds, that Phoebe and her younger sisters still called theirs, and loved with the pride of property; but, indeed, the bright carpeting of the whole garden was something especially their own, rejoicing their eyes, and unvalued by the rest of the house. On the like liberal scale were the salaries of the educators. Governesses were judged according to their demands; and the highest bidder was supposed to understand her own claims best. Miss Fennimore was a finishing governess of the highest order, thinking it an insult to be offered a pupil below her teens, or to lose one till nearly beyond them; nor was she far from being the treasure that Mrs. Fulmort pronounced her, in gratitude for the absence of all the explosions produced by the various imperfections of her predecessors.

A highly able woman, and perfectly sincere, she possessed the qualities of a ruler, and had long experience in the art. Her discipline was perfect in machinery, and her instructions admirably complete. No one could look at her keen, sensible, self-possessed countenance, her decided mouth, ever busy hands, and unpretending but well-chosen style of dress, without seeing that her energy and intelligence were of a high order; and there was principle likewise, though no one ever quite penetrated to the foundation of it. Certainly she was not an irreligious person; she conformed, as she said, to the habits of each family she lived with, and she highly estimated moral perfections. Now and then a degree of scorn, for the narrowness of dogma, would appear in reading history, but in general she was understood to have opinions which she did not obtrude.

As a teacher she was excellent; but her own strong conformation prevented her from understanding that young girls were incapable of such tension of intellect as an enthusiastic scholar of forty-two, and that what was sport to her was toil to a mind unaccustomed to constant attention. Change of labour is not rest, unless it be through gratification of the will. Her very best pupil she had killed. Finding a very sharp sword, in a very frail scabbard, she had whetted the one and worn down the other, by every stimulus in her power, till a jury of physicians might have found her guilty of manslaughter; but perfectly unconscious of her own agency in causing the atrophy, her dear Anna Webster lived foremost in her affections, the model for every subsequent pupil. She seldom remained more than two years in a family. Sometimes the young brains were over-excited; more often they fell into a dreary state of drilled diligence; but she was too much absorbed in the studies to look close into the human beings, and marvelled when the fathers and mothers were blind enough to part with her on the plea of health and need of change.

On the whole she had never liked any of her charges since the renowned Anna Webster so well as Phoebe Fulmort; although her abilities did not rise above the 'very fair,' and she was apt to be bewildered in metaphysics and political economy; but then she had none of the eccentricities of will and temper of Miss Fennimore's clever girls, nor was she like most good-humoured ones, recklessly insouciante. Her only drawback, in the governess's eyes, was that she never seemed desirous of going beyond what was daily required of her—each study was a duty, and not a subject of zeal.

Presently Miss Fennimore came back, followed by the two sisters, neither of them in the best of tempers. Maria, a stout, clumsily-made girl of fifteen, had the same complexion and open eyes as Phoebe, but her colouring was muddled, the gaze full-orbed and vacant, and the lips, always pouting, were just now swelled with the vexation that filled her prominent eyelids with tears. Bertha, two years younger, looked as if nature had designed her for a boy, and the change into a girl was not yet decided. She, too, was very like Maria; but Maria's open nostrils were in her a droll retrousse, puggish little nose; her chin had a boyish squareness and decision, her round cheeks had two comical dimples, her eyes were either stretched in defiance or narrowed up with fun, and a slight cast in one gave a peculiar archness and character to her face; her skin, face, hands, and all, were uniformly pinky; her hair in such obstinate yellow curls, that it was to be hoped, for her sake, that the fashion of being crepe might continue. The brow lowered in petulance; and as she kissed Phoebe, she muttered in her ear a vituperation of the governess in schoolroom patois; then began tossing the lesson-books in the air and catching them again, as a preliminary to finding the places, thus drawing on herself a reproof in German. French and German were alternately spoken in lesson hours by Phoebe and Bertha, who had lived with foreign servants from infancy; but poor Maria had not the faculty of keeping the tongues distinct, and corrections only terrified her into confusion worse confounded, until Miss Fennimore had in despair decided that English was the best alternative.

Phoebe practised vigorously. Aware that nothing pleasant was passing, and that, be it what it might, she could do no good, she was glad to stop her ears with her music, until eight o'clock brought a pause in the shape of breakfast. Formerly the schoolroom party had joined the family meal, but since the two elder girls had been out, and Mervyn's friends had been often in the house, it had been decided that the home circle was too numerous; and what had once been the play-room was allotted to be the eating-room of the younger ones, without passing the red door, on the other side of which lay the world.

Breakfast was announced by the schoolroom maid, and Miss Fennimore rose. No sooner was her back turned, than Bertha indulged in a tremendous writhing yawn, wriggling in her chair, and clenching both fat fists, as she threatened with each, at her governess's retreating figure, so ludicrously, that Phoebe smiled while she shook her head, and an explosive giggle came from Maria, causing the lady to turn and behold Miss Bertha demure as ever, and a look of disconsolate weariness fast settling down on each of the two young faces. The unbroken routine pressed heavily at those fit moments for family greetings and for relaxation, and even Phoebe would gladly have been spared the German account of the Holt and of Miss Charlecote's book, for which she was called upon. Bertha meanwhile, to whom waggishness was existence, was carrying on a silent drama on her plate, her roll being a quarry, and her knife the workmen attacking it. Now she undermined, now acted an explosion, with uplifted eyebrows and an indicated 'puff!' with her lips, with constant dumb-show directed to Maria, who, without half understanding, was in a constant suppressed titter, sometimes concealed by her pocket-handkerchief.

Quick as Miss Fennimore was, and often as she frowned on Maria's outbreaks, she never could detect their provocative. Over-restraint and want of sympathy were direct instruction in unscrupulous slyness of amusement. A sentence of displeasure on Maria's ill-mannered folly was in the act of again filling her eyes with tears, when there was a knock at the door, and all the faces beamed with glad expectation.

It was Robert. This was the time of day when he knew Miss Fennimore could best tolerate him, and he seldom failed to make his appearance on his way down-stairs, the only one of the privileged race who was a wonted object on this side the baize door. Phoebe thought he looked more cheerful, and indeed gravity could hardly have withstood Bertha's face, as she gave a mischievous tweak to his hair behind, under colour of putting her arm round his neck.

'Well, Curlylocks, how much mischief did you do yesterday?'

'I'd no spirits for mischief,' she answered, with mock pitifulness, twinkling up her eyes, and rubbing them with her knuckles as if she were crying. 'You barbarous wretch, taking Phoebe to feast on strawberries and cream with Miss Charlecote, and leaving poor me to poke in that stupid drawing-room, with nothing to do but to count the scollops of mamma's flounce!'

'It is your turn. Will Miss Fennimore kindly let you have a walk with me this evening?'

'And me,' said Maria.

'You, of course. May I come for them at five o'clock?'

'I can hardly tell what to say about Maria. I do not like to disappoint her, but she knows that nothing displeases me so much as that ill-mannered habit of giggling,' said Miss Fennimore, not without concern. Merciful as to Maria's attainments, she was strict as to her manners, and was striving to teach her self-restraint enough to be unobtrusive.

Poor Maria's eyes were glassy with tears, her chest heaved with sobs, and she broke out, 'O pray, Miss Fennimore, O pray!' while all the others interceded for her; and Bertha, well knowing that it was all her fault, avoided the humiliation of a confession, by the apparent generosity of exclaiming, 'Take us both to-morrow instead, Robin.'

Robert's journey was, however, fixed for that day, and on this plea, licence was given for the walk. Phoebe smiled congratulation, but Maria was slow in cheering up; and when, on returning to the schoolroom, the three sisters were left alone together for a few moments, she pressed up to Phoebe's side, and said, 'Phoebe, I've not said my prayers. Do you think anything will happen to me?'

Her awfully mysterious tone set Bertha laughing. 'Yes, Maria, all the cows in the park will run at you,' she was beginning, when the grave rebuke of Phoebe's eyes cut her short.

'How was it, my dear?' asked Phoebe, tenderly fondling her sister.

'I was so sleepy, and Bertha would blow soap-bubbles in her hands while we were washing, and then Miss Fennimore came, and I've been naughty now, and I know I shall go on, and then Robin won't take me.'

'I will ask Miss Fennimore to let you go to your room, dearest,' said Phoebe. 'You must not play again in dressing time, for there's nothing so sad as to miss our prayers. You are a good girl to care so much. Had you time for yours, Bertha?'

'Oh, plenty!' with a toss of her curly head. 'I don't take ages about things, like Maria.'

'Prayers cannot be hurried,' said Phoebe, looking distressed, and she was about to remind Bertha to whom she spoke in prayer, when the child cut her short by the exclamation, 'Nonsense, Maria, about being naughty. You know I always make you laugh when I please, and that has more to do with it than saying your prayers, I fancy.'

'Perhaps,' said Phoebe, very sadly, 'if you had said yours more in earnest, my poor Bertha, you would either not have made Maria laugh, or would not have left her to bear all the blame.'

'Why do you call me poor?' exclaimed Bertha, with a half-offended, half-diverted look.

'Because I wish so much that you knew better, or that I could help you better,' said Phoebe, gently.

There Miss Fennimore entered, displeased at the English sounds, and at finding them all, as she thought, loitering. Phoebe explained Maria's omission, and Miss Fennimore allowed her five minutes in her own room, saying that this must not become a precedent, though she did not wish to oppress her conscience.

Bertha's eyes glittered with a certain triumph, as she saw that Miss Fennimore was of her mind, and anticipated no consequences from the neglect, but only made the concession as to a superstition. Without disbelief, the child trained only to reason, and quick to detect fallacy, was blind to all that was not material. And how was the spiritual to be brought before her?

Phoebe might well sigh as she sat down to her abstract of Schlegel's Lectures. 'If any one would but teach them,' she thought; 'but there is no time at all, and I myself do not know half so much of those things as one of Miss Charlecote's lowest classes.'

Phoebe was a little mistaken. An earnest mind taught how to learn, with access to the Bible and Prayer Book, could gain more from these fountain-heads than any external teaching could impart; and she could carry her difficulties to Robert. Still it was out of her power to assist her sisters. Surveillance and driving absolutely left no space free from Miss Fennimore's requirements; and all that there was to train those young ones in faith, was the manner in which it lived and worked in her. Nor of this effect could she be conscious.

As to dreams or repinings, or even listening to her hopes and fears for her project of pleasure, they were excluded by the concentrated attention that Miss Fennimore's system enforced. Time and capacity were so much on the stretch, that the habit of doing what she was doing, and nothing else, had become second nature to the docile and duteous girl; and she had become little sensible to interruptions; so she went on with her German, her Greek, and her algebra, scarcely hearing the repetitions of the lessons, or the counting as Miss Fennimore presided over Maria's practice, a bit of drudgery detested by the governess, but necessarily persevered in, for Maria loved music, and had just voice and ear sufficient to render this single accomplishment not hopeless, but a certain want of power of sustained effort made her always break down at the moment she seemed to be doing best. Former governesses had lost patience, but Miss Fennimore had early given up the case, and never scolded her for her failures; she made her attempt less, and she was improving more, and shedding fewer tears than under any former dynasty. Even a stern dominion is better for the subjects than an uncertain and weak one; regularity gives a sense of reliance; and constant occupation leaves so little time for being naughty, that Bertha herself was getting into training, and on the present day her lessons were exemplary, always with a view to the promised walk with her brother, one of the greatest pleasures ever enjoyed by the denizens of the west wing.

Phoebe's pleasure was less certain, and less dependent on her merits, yet it invigorated her efforts to do all she had to do with all her might, even into the statement of the pros and cons of customs and free-trade, which she was required to produce as her morning's exercise. In the midst, her ear detected the sound of wheels, and her heart throbbed in the conviction that it was Miss Charlecote's pony carriage; nay, she found her pen had indited 'Robin would be so glad,' instead of 'revenue to the government,' and while scratching the words out beyond all legibility, she blamed herself for betraying such want of self-command.

No summons came, no tidings, the wheels went away; her heart sank, and her spirit revolted against an unfeeling, unutterably wearisome captivity; but it was only a moment's fluttering against the bars, the tears were driven back with the thought, 'After all, the decision is guided from Above. If I stay at home, it must be best for me. Let me try to be good!' and she forced her mind back to her exports and her customs. It was such discipline as few girls could have exercised, but the conscientious effort was no small assistance in being resigned; and in the precious minutes granted in which to prepare herself for dinner, she found it the less hard task to part with her anticipations of delight and brace herself to quiet, contented duty.

The meal was beginning when, with a very wide expansion of the door, appeared a short, consequential-looking personage, of such plump, rounded proportions, that she seemed ready to burst out of her riding-habit, and of a broad, complacent visage, somewhat overblooming. It was Miss Fulmort, the eldest of the family, a young lady just past thirty, a very awful distance from the schoolroom party, to whom she nodded with good-natured condescension, saying: 'Ah! I thought I should find you at dinner; I'm come for something to sustain nature. The riding party are determined to have me with them, and they won't wait for luncheon. Thank you, yes, a piece of mutton, if there were any under side. How it reminds me of old times. I used so to look forward to never seeing a loin of mutton again.'

'As your chief ambition?' said Miss Fennimore, who, governess as she was, could not help being a little satirical, especially when Bertha's eyes twinkled responsively.

'One does get so tired of mutton and rice-pudding,' answered the less observant Miss Fulmort, who was but dimly conscious of any one's existence save her own, and could not have credited a governess laughing at her; 'but really this is not so bad, after all, for a change; and some pale ale. You don't mean that you exist without pale ale?'

'We all drink water by preference,' said Miss Fennimore.

'Indeed! Miss Watson, our finishing governess, never drank anything but claret, and she always had little pates, or fish, or something, because she said her appetite was to be consulted, she was so delicate. She was very thin, I know; and what a figure you have, Phoebe! I suppose that is water drinking. Bridger did say it would reduce me to leave off pale ale, but I can't get on without it, I get so horridly low. Don't you think that's a sign, Miss Fennimore?'

'I beg your pardon, a sign of what?'

'That one can't go on without it. Miss Charlecote said she thought it was all constitution whether one is stout or not, and that nothing made much difference, when I asked her about German wines.'

'Oh! Augusta, has Miss Charlecote been here this morning?' exclaimed Phoebe.

'Yes; she came at twelve o'clock, and there was I actually pinned down to entertain her, for mamma was not come down. So I asked her about those light foreign wines, and whether they do really make one thinner; you know one always has them at her house.'

'Did mamma see her?' asked poor Phoebe, anxiously.

'Oh yes, she was bent upon it. It was something about you. Oh! she wants to take you to stay with her in that horrible hole of hers in the City—very odd of her. What do you advise me to do, Miss Fennimore? Do you think those foreign wines would bring me down a little, or that they would make me low and sinking?'

'Really, I have no experience on the subject!' said Miss Fennimore, loftily.

'What did mamma say?' was poor Phoebe's almost breathless question.

'Oh! it makes no difference to mamma' (Phoebe's heart bounded); but Augusta went on: 'she always has her soda-water, you know; but of course I should take a hamper from Bass. I hate being unprovided.'

'But about my going to London?' humbly murmured Phoebe.

'What did she say?' considered the elder sister, aloud. 'I don't know, I'm sure. I was not attending—the heat does make one so sleepy—but I know we all wondered she should want you at your age. You know some people take a spoonful of vinegar to fine themselves down, and some of those wines are very acid,' she continued, pressing on with her great subject of consultation.

'If it be an object with you, Miss Fulmort, I should recommend the vinegar,' said Miss Fennimore. 'There is nothing like doing a thing outright!'

'And, oh! how glorious it would be to see her taking it!' whispered Bertha into Phoebe's ear, unheard by Augusta, who, in her satisfied stolidity, was declaring, 'No, I could not undertake that. I am the worst person in the world for taking anything disagreeable.'

And having completed her meal, which she had contrived to make out of the heart of the joint, leaving the others little but fat, she walked off to her ride, believing that she had done a gracious and condescending action in making conversation with her inferiors of the west wing.

Yet Augusta Fulmort might have been good for something, if her mind and her affections had not lain fallow ever since she escaped from a series of governesses who taught her self-indulgence by example.

'I wonder what mamma said!' exclaimed Phoebe, in her strong craving for sympathy in her suspense.

'I am sorry the subject has been brought forward, if it is to unsettle you, Phoebe,' said Miss Fennimore, not unkindly; 'I regret your being twice disappointed; but, if your mother should refer it to me, as I make no doubt she will, I should say that it would be a great pity to break up our course of studies.'

'It would only be for a little while,' sighed Phoebe; 'and Miss Charlecote is to show me all the museums. I should see more with her than ever I shall when I am come out; and I should be with Robert.'

'I intended asking permission to take you through a systematic course of lectures and specimens when the family are next in town,' said Miss Fennimore. 'Ordinary, desultory sight-seeing leaves few impressions; and though Miss Charlecote is a superior person, her mind is not of a sufficiently scientific turn to make her fully able to direct you. I shall trust to your good sense, Phoebe, for again submitting to defer the pleasure till it can be enhanced.'

Good sense had a task imposed on it for which it was quite inadequate; but there was something else in Phoebe which could do the work better than her unconvinced reason. Even had she been sure of the expediency of being condemned to the schoolroom, no good sense would have brought that resolute smile, or driven back the dew in her eyes, or enabled her voice to say, with such sweet meekness, 'Very well, Miss Fennimore; I dare say it may be right.'

Miss Fennimore was far more concerned than if the submission had been grudging. She debated with herself whether she should consider her resolution irrevocable.

Ten minutes were allowed after dinner in the parterre, and these could only be spent under the laurel hedge; the sun was far too hot everywhere else. Phoebe had here no lack of sympathy, but had to restrain Bertha, who, with angry gestures, was pronouncing the governess a horrid cross-patch, and declaring that no girls ever were used as they were; while Maria observed, that if Phoebe went to London, she must go too.

'We shall all go some day,' said Phoebe, cheerfully, 'and we shall enjoy it all the more if we are good now. Never mind, Bertha, we shall have some nice walks.'

'Yes, all bothered with botany,' muttered Bertha.

'I thought, at least, you would be glad of me,' said Phoebe, smiling; 'you who stay at home.'

'To be sure, I am,' said Bertha; 'but it is such a shame! I shall tell Robin, and he'll say so too. I shall tell him you nearly cried!'

'Don't vex Robin,' said Phoebe. 'When you go out, you should set yourself to tell him pleasant things.'

'So I'm to tell him you wouldn't go on any account. You like your political economy much too well!'

'Suppose you say nothing about it,' said Phoebe. 'Make yourself merry with him. That's what you've got to do. He takes you out to entertain you, not to worry about grievances.'

'Do you never talk about grievances?' asked Bertha, twinkling up her eyes.

Phoebe hesitated. 'Not my own,' she said, 'because I have not got any.'

'Has Robert, then?' asked Bertha.

'Nobody has grievances who is out of the schoolroom,' opined Maria; and as she uttered this profound sentiment, the tinkle of Miss Fennimore's little bell warned the sisters to return to the studies, which in the heat of summer were pursued in the afternoon, that the walk might be taken in the cool of the evening. Reading aloud, drawing, and sensible plain needlework were the avocations till it was time to learn the morrow's lessons. Phoebe being beyond this latter work, drew on, and in the intervals of helping Maria with her geography, had time to prepare such a bright face as might make Robert think lightly of her disappointment, and not reckon it as another act of tyranny.

When he opened the door, however, there was that in his looks which made her spirits leap up like an elastic spring; and his 'Well, Phoebe!' was almost triumphant.

'Is it—am I—' was all she could say.

'Has no one thought it worth while to tell you?'

'Don't you know,' interposed Bertha, 'you on the other side the red baize door might be all married, or dead and buried, for aught we should hear. But is Phoebe to go?'

'I believe so.'

'Are you sure?' asked Phoebe, afraid yet to hope.

'Yes. My father heard the invitation, and said that you were a good girl, and deserved a holiday.'

Commendation from that quarter was so rare, that excess of gladness made Phoebe cast down her eyes and colour intensely, a little oppressed by the victory over her governess. But Miss Fennimore spoke warmly. 'He cannot think her more deserving than I do. I am rejoiced not to have been consulted, for I could hardly have borne to inflict such a mortification on her, though these interruptions are contrary to my views. As it is, Phoebe, my dear, I wish you joy.'

'Thank you,' Phoebe managed to say, while the happy tears fairly started. In that chilly land, the least approach to tenderness was like the gleam in which the hardy woodbine leaflets unfold to sun themselves.

Thankful for small mercies, thought Robert, looking at her with fond pity; but at least the dear child will have one fortnight of a more genial atmosphere, and soon, maybe, I shall transplant her to be Lucilla's darling as well as mine, free from task-work, and doing the labours of love for which she is made!

He was quite in spirits, and able to reply in kind to the freaks and jokes of his little sister, as she started, spinning round him like a humming-top, and singing—

Will you go to the wood, Robin a Bobbin?

giving safe vent to an ebullition of spirits that must last her a good while, poor little maiden!

Phoebe took a sober walk with Miss Fennimore, receiving advice on methodically journalizing what she might see, and on the scheme of employments which might prevent her visit from being waste of time. The others would have resented the interference with the holiday; but Phoebe, though a little sorry to find that tasks were not to be off her mind, was too grateful for Miss Fennimore's cordial consent to entertain any thought except of obedience to the best of her power.

Miss Fennimore was politely summoned to Mrs. Fulmort's dressing-room for the official communication; but this day was no exception to the general custom, that the red baize door was not passed by the young ladies until their evening appearance in the drawing-room. Then the trio descended, all alike in white muslin, made high, and green sashes—a dress carefully distinguishing Phoebe as not introduced, but very becoming to her, with the simple folds and the little net ruche, suiting admirably the tall, rounded slenderness of her shape, her long neck, and short, childish contour of face, where there smiled a joy of anticipation almost inappreciable to those who know not what it is to spend day after day with nothing particular to look forward to.

Very grand was the drawing-room, all amber-coloured with satin-wood, satin and gold, and with everything useless and costly encumbering tables that looked as if nothing could ever be done upon them. Such a room inspired a sense of being in company, and it was no wonder that Mrs. Fulmort and her two elder daughters swept in in as decidedly procession style as if they had formed part of a train of twenty.

The star that bestowed three female sovereigns to Europe seemed to have had the like influence on Hiltonbury parish, since both its squires were heiresses. Miss Mervyn would have been a happier woman had she married a plain country gentleman, like those of her own stock, instead of giving a county position to a man of lower origin and enormous monied wealth. To live up to the claims of that wealth had been her business ever since, and health and enjoyment had been so completely sacrificed to it, that for many years past the greater part of her time had been spent in resting and making herself up for her appearance in the evening, when she conducted her elder daughters to their gaieties. Faded and tallowy in complexion, so as to be almost ghastly in her blue brocade and heavy gold ornaments, she reclined languidly on a large easy-chair, saying with half-closed eyes—

'Well, Phoebe, Miss Fennimore has told you of Miss Charlecote's invitation.'

'Yes, mamma. I am very, very much obliged!'

'You know you are not to fancy yourself come out,' said Juliana, the second sister, who had a good tall figure, and features and complexion not far from beauty, but marred by a certain shrewish tone and air.

'Oh, no,' answered Phoebe; 'but with Miss Charlecote that will make no difference.'

'Probably not,' said Juliana; 'for of course you will see nobody but a set of old maids and clergymen and their wives.'

'She need not go far for old maids,' whispered Bertha to Maria.

'Pray, in which class do you reckon the Sandbrooks?' said Phoebe, smiling; 'for she chiefly goes to meet them.'

'She may go!' said Juliana, scornfully; 'but Lucilla Sandbrook is far past attending to her!'

'I wonder whether the Charterises will take any notice of Phoebe?' exclaimed Augusta.

'My dear,' said Mrs. Fulmort, waking slowly to another idea, 'I will tell Boodle to talk to—what's your maid's name?—about your dresses.'

'Oh, mamma,' interposed Juliana, 'it will be only poking about the exhibitions with Miss Charlecote. You may have that plaid silk of mine that I was going to have worn out abroad, half-price for her.'

Bertha fairly made a little stamp at Juliana, and clenched her fist.

If Phoebe dreaded anything in the way of dress, it was Juliana's half-price.

'My dear, your papa would not like her not to be well fitted out,' said her mother; 'and Honora Charlecote always has such handsome things. I wish Boodle could put mine on like hers.'

'Oh, very well!' said Juliana, rather offended; 'only it should be understood what is to be done if the Charterises ask her to any of their parties. There will be such mistakes and confusion if she meets any one we know; and you particularly objected to having her brought forward.'

Phoebe's eye was a little startled, and Bertha set her front teeth together on edge, and looked viciously at Juliana.

'My dear, Honora Charlecote never goes out,' said Mrs. Fulmort.

'If she should, you understand, Phoebe,' said Juliana.

Coffee came in at the moment, and Augusta criticized the strength of it, which made a diversion, during which Bertha slipped out of the room, with a face replete with mischievous exultation.

'Are not you going to play to-night, my dears?' asked Mrs. Fulmort. 'What was that duet I heard you practising?'

'Come, Juliana,' said the elder sister, 'I meant to go over it again; I am not satisfied with my part.'

'I have to write a note,' said Juliana, moving off to another table; whereupon Phoebe ventured to propose herself as a substitute, and was accepted.

Maria sat entranced, with her mouth open; and presently Mrs. Fulmort looked up from a kind of doze to ask who was playing. For some moments she had no answer. Maria was too much awed for speech in the drawing-room; and though Bertha had come back, she had her back to her mother, and did not hear. Mrs. Fulmort exerted herself to sit up and turn her head.

'Was that Phoebe?' she said. 'You have a clear, good touch, my dear, as they used to say I had when I was at school at Bath. Play another of your pieces, my dear.'

'I am ready now, Augusta,' said Juliana, advancing.

Little girls were not allowed at the piano when officers might be coming in from the dining-room, so Maria's face became vacant again, for Juliana's music awoke no echoes within her.

Phoebe beckoned her to a remote ottoman, a receptacle for the newspapers of the week, and kept her turning over the Illustrated News, an unfailing resource with her, but powerless to occupy Bertha after the first Saturday; and Bertha, turning a deaf ear to the assurance that there was something very entertaining about a tiger-hunt, stood, solely occupied by eyeing Juliana.

Was she studying 'come-out' life as she watched her sisters surrounded by the gentlemen who presently herded round the piano?

It was nearly the moment when the young ones were bound to withdraw, when Mervyn, coming hastily up to their ottoman, had almost stumbled over Maria's foot.

'Beg pardon. Oh, it was only you! What a cow it is!' said he, tossing over the papers.

'What are you looking for, Mervyn?' asked Phoebe.

'An advertisement—Bell's Life for the 3rd. That rascal, Mears, must have taken it.'

She found it for him, and likewise the advertisement, which he, missing once, was giving up in despair.

'I say,' he observed, while she was searching, 'so you are to chip the shell.'

'I'm only going to London—I'm not coming out.'

'Gammon!' he said, with an odd wink. 'You need never go in again, like the what's-his-name in the fairy tale, or you are a sillier child than I take you for. They'—nodding at the piano—'are getting a terrible pair of old cats, and we want something young and pretty about.'

With this unusual compliment, Phoebe, seeing the way clear to the door, rose to depart, most reluctantly followed by Bertha, and more willingly by Maria, who began, the moment they were in the hall—

'Phoebe, why do they get a couple of terrible old cats? I don't like them. I shall be afraid.'

'Mervyn didn't mean—' began perplexed Phoebe, cut short by Bertha's boisterous laughter. 'Oh, Maria, what a goose you are! You'll be the death of me some day! Why, Juliana and Augusta are the cats themselves. Oh, dear! I wanted to kiss Mervyn for saying so. Oh, wasn't it fun! And now, Maria,—oh! if I could have stayed a moment longer!'

'Bertha, Bertha, not such a noise in the hall. Come, Maria; mind, you must not tell anybody. Bertha, come,' expostulated Phoebe, trying to drag her sister to the red baize door; but Bertha stood, bending nearly double, exaggerating the helplessness of her paroxysms of laughter.

'Well, at least the cat will have something to scratch her,' she gasped out. 'Oh, I did so want to stay and see!'

'Have you been playing any tricks?' exclaimed Phoebe, with consternation, as Bertha's deportment recurred to her.

'Tricks?—I couldn't help it. Oh, listen, Phoebe!' cried Bertha, with her wicked look of triumph. 'I brought home such a lovely sting-nettle for Miss Fennimore's peacock caterpillar; and when I heard how kind dear Juliana was to you about your visit to London, I thought she really must have it for a reward; so I ran away, and slily tucked it into her bouquet; and I did so hope she would take it up to fiddle with when the gentlemen talk to her,' said the elf, with an irresistibly comic imitation of Juliana's manner towards gentlemen.

'Bertha, this is beyond—' began Phoebe.

'Didn't you sting your fingers?' asked Maria.

Bertha stuck out her fat pink paws, embellished with sundry white lumps. 'All pleasure,' said she, 'thinking of the jump Juliana will give, and how nicely it serves her.'

Phoebe was already on her way back to the drawing-rooms; Bertha sprang after, but in vain. Never would she have risked the success of her trick, could she have guessed that Phoebe would have the temerity to return to the company!

Phoebe glided in without waiting for the sense of awkwardness, though she knew she should have to cross the whole room, and she durst not ask any one to bring the dangerous bouquet to her—not even Robert—he must not be stung in her service.

She met her mother's astonished eye as she threaded her way; she wound round a group of gentlemen, and spied the article of which she was in quest, where Juliana had laid it down with her gloves on going to the piano. Actually she had it! She had seized it unperceived! Good little thief; it was a most innocent robbery. She crept away with a sense of guilt and desire to elude observation, positively starting when she encountered her father's portly figure in the ante-room. He stopped her with 'Going to bed, eh? So Miss Charlecote has taken a fancy to you, has she? It does you credit. What shall you want for the journey?'

'Boodle is going to see,' began Phoebe, but he interrupted.

'Will fifty do? I will have my daughters well turned out. All to be spent upon yourself, mind. Why, you've not a bit of jewellery on! Have you a watch?'

'No, papa.'

'Robert shall choose one for you, then. Come to my room any time for the cash; and if Miss Charlecote takes you anywhere among her set—good connections she has—and you want to be rigged out extra, send me in the bill—anything rather than be shabby.'

'Thank you, papa! Then, if I am asked out anywhere, may I go?'

'Why, what does the child mean? Anywhere that Miss Charlecote likes to take you of course.'

'Only because I am not come out.'

'Stuff about coming out! I don't like my girls to be shy and backward. They've a right to show themselves anywhere; and you should be going out with us now, but somehow your poor mother doesn't like the trouble of such a lot of girls. So don't be shy, but make the most of yourself, for you won't meet many better endowed, nor more highly accomplished. Good night, and enjoy yourself.'

Palpitating with wonder and pleasure, Phoebe escaped. Such permission, over-riding all Juliana's injunctions, was worth a few nettle stings and a great fright; for Phoebe was not philosopher enough, in spite of Miss Fennimore—ay, and of Robert—not to have a keen desire to see a great party.

Her delay had so much convinced the sisters that her expedition had had some fearful consequences, that Maria was already crying lest dear Phoebe should be in disgrace; and Bertha had seated herself on the balusters, debating with herself whether, if Phoebe were suspected of the trick (a likely story) and condemned to lose her visit to London, she would confess herself the guilty person.

And when Phoebe came back, too much overcome with delight to do anything but communicate papa's goodness, and rejoice in the unlimited power of making presents, Bertha triumphantly insisted on her confessing that it had been a capital thing that the nettles were in Juliana's nosegay!

Phoebe shook her head; too happy to scold, too humble to draw the moral that the surest way to gratification is to remove the thorns from the path of others.



CHAPTER III

She gives thee a garland woven fair, Take care! It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear, Beware! Beware! Trust her not, She is fooling thee!—LONGFELLOW, from MULLER

Behold Phoebe Fulmort seated in a train on the way to London. She was a very pleasant spectacle to Miss Charlecote opposite to her, so peacefully joyous was her face, as she sat with the wind breathing in on her, in the calm luxury of contemplating the landscape gliding past the windows in all its summer charms, and the repose of having no one to hunt her into unvaried rationality.

Her eye was the first to detect Robert in waiting at the terminus, but he looked more depressed than ever, and scarcely smiled as he handed them to the carriage.

'Get in, Robert, you are coming home with us,' said Honor.

'You have so much to take, I should encumber you.'

'No, the sundries go in cabs, with the maids. Jump in.'

'Do your friends arrive to-night?'

'Yes; but that is no reason you should look so rueful! Make the most of Phoebe beforehand. Besides, Mr. Parsons is a Wykehamist.'

Robert took his place on the back seat, but still as if he would have preferred walking home. Neither his sister nor his friend dared to ask whether he had seen Lucilla. Could she have refused him? or was her frivolity preying on his spirits?

Phoebe tried to interest him by the account of the family migration, and of Miss Fennimore's promise that Maria and Bertha should have two half-hours of real play in the garden on each day when the lessons had been properly done; and how she had been so kind as to let Maria leave off trying to read a French book that had proved too hard for her, not perceiving why this instance of good-nature was not cheering to her brother.

Miss Charlecote's house was a delightful marvel to Phoebe from the moment when she rattled into the paved court, entered upon the fragrant odour of the cedar hall, and saw the Queen of Sheba's golden locks beaming with the evening light. She entered the drawing-room, pleasant-looking already, under the judicious arrangement of the housekeeper, who had set out the Holt flowers and arranged the books, so that it seemed full of welcome.

Phoebe ran from window to mantelpiece, enchanted with the quaint mixture of old and new, admiring carving and stained glass, and declaring that Owen had not prepared her for anything equal to this, until Miss Charlecote, going to arrange matters with her housekeeper, left the brother and sister together.

'Well, Robin!' said Phoebe, coming up to him anxiously.

He only crossed his arms on the mantelpiece, rested his head on them, and sighed.

'Have you seen her?'

'Not to speak to her.'

'Have you called?'

'No.'

'Then where did you see her?'

'She was riding in the Park. I was on foot.'

'She could not have seen you!' exclaimed Phoebe.

'She did,' replied Robert; 'I was going to tell you. She gave me one of her sweetest, brightest smiles, such as only she can give. You know them, Phoebe. No assumed welcome, but a sudden flash and sparkle of real gladness.'

'But why—what do you mean?' asked Phoebe; 'why have you not been to her? I thought from your manner that she had been neglecting you, but it seems to me all the other way.'

'I cannot, Phoebe; I cannot put my poor pretensions forward in the set she is with. I know they would influence her, and that her decision would not be calm and mature.'

'Her decision of what you are to be?'

'That is fixed,' said Robert, sighing.

'Indeed! With papa.'

'No, in my own mind. I have seen enough of the business to find that I could in ten years quadruple my capital, and in the meantime maintain her in the manner she prefers.'

'You are quite sure she prefers it?'

'She has done so ever since she could exercise a choice. I should feel myself doing her an injustice if I were to take advantage of any preference she may entertain for me to condemn her to what would be to her a dreary banishment.'

'Not with you,' cried Phoebe.

'You know nothing about it, Phoebe. You have never led such a life, and you it would not hurt—attract, I mean; but lovely, fascinating, formed for admiration, and craving for excitement as she is, she is a being that can only exist in society. She would be miserable in homely retirement—I mean she would prey on herself. I could not ask it of her. If she consented, it would be without knowing her own tastes. No; all that remains is to find out whether she can submit to owe her wealth to our business.'

'And shall you?'

'I could not but defer it till I should meet her here,' said Robert. 'I shrink from seeing her with those cousins, or hearing her name with theirs. Phoebe, imagine my feelings when, going into Mervyn's club with him, I heard "Rashe Charteris and Cilly Sandbrook" contemptuously discussed by those very names, and jests passing on their independent ways. I know how it is. Those people work on her spirit of enterprise, and she—too guileless and innocent to heed appearances. Phoebe, you do not wonder that I am nearly mad!'

'Poor Robin!' said Phoebe affectionately. 'But, indeed, I am sure, if Lucy once had a hint—no, one could not tell her, it would shock her too much; but if she had the least idea that people could be so impertinent,' and Phoebe's cheeks glowed with shame and indignation, 'she would only wish to go away as far as she could for fear of seeing any of them again. I am sure they were not gentlemen, Robin.'

'A man must be supereminently a gentleman to respect a woman who does not make him do so,' said Robert mournfully. 'That Miss Charteris! Oh! that she were banished to Siberia!'

Phoebe meditated a few moments; then looking up, said, 'I beg your pardon, Robin, but it does strike me that, if you think that this kind of life is not good for Lucilla, it cannot be right to sacrifice your own higher prospects to enable her to continue it.'

'I tell you, Phoebe,' said he, with some impatience, 'I never was pledged. I may be of much more use and influence, and able to effect more extended good as a partner in a concern like this than as an obscure clergyman. Don't you see?'

Phoebe had only time to utter a somewhat melancholy 'Very likely,' before Miss Charlecote returned to take her to her room, the promised brown cupboard, all wainscoted with delicious cedar, so deeply and uniformly panelled, that when shut, the door was not obvious; and it was like being in a box, for there were no wardrobes, only shelves shut by doors into the wall, which the old usage of the household tradition called awmries (armoires). The furniture was reasonably modern, but not obtrusively so. There was a delicious recess in the deep window, with a seat and a table in it, and a box of mignonette along the sill. It looked out into the little high-walled entrance court, and beyond to the wall of the warehouse opposite; and the roar of the great city thoroughfare came like the distant surging of the ocean. Seldom had young maiden's bower given more satisfaction. Phoebe looked about her as if she hardly knew how to believe in anything so unlike her ordinary life, and she thanked her friend again and again with such enthusiasm, that Miss Charlecote laughed as she told her she liked the old house to be appreciated, since it had, like Pompeii, been potted for posterity.

'And thank you, my dear,' she added with a sigh, 'for making my coming home so pleasant. May you never know how I dreaded the finding it full of emptiness.'

'Dear Miss Charlecote!' cried Phoebe, venturing upon a warm kiss, and thrilled with sad pleasure as she was pressed in a warm, clinging embrace, and felt tears on her cheek. 'You have been so happy here!'

'It is not the past, my dear,' said Honora; 'I could live peacefully on the thought of that. The shadows that people this house are very gentle ones. It is the present!'

She broke off, for the gates of the court were opening to admit a detachment of cabs, containing the persons and properties of the new incumbent and his wife. He had been a curate of Mr. Charlecote, since whose death he had led a very hard-working life in various towns; and on his recent presentation to the living of St. Wulstan's, Honora had begged him and his wife to make her house their home while determining on the repairs of the parsonage. She ran down to meet them with gladsome steps. She had never entirely dropped her intercourse with Mr. Parsons, though seldom meeting; and he was a relic of the past, one of the very few who still called her by her Christian name, and regarded her more as the clergyman's daughter of St. Wulstan's than as lady of the Holt. Mrs. Parsons was a thorough clergyman's wife, as active as himself, and much loved and esteemed by Honora, with whom, in their few meetings, she had 'got on' to admiration.

There they were, looking after luggage, and paying cabs so heedfully as not to remark their hostess standing on the stairs; and she had time to survey them with the affectionate curiosity of meeting after long absence, and with pleasure in remarking that there was little change. Perhaps they were rather more gray, and had grown more alike by force of living and thinking together; but they both looked equally alert and cheerful, and as if fifty and fifty-five were the very prime of years for substantial work.

Their first glances at her were full of the same anxiety for her health and strength, as they heartily shook hands, and accompanied her into the drawing-room, she explaining that Mr. Parsons was to have the study all to himself, and never be disturbed there; then inquiring after the three children, two daughters, who were married, and a son lately ordained.

'I thought you would have brought William to see about the curacy,' she said.

'He is not strong enough,' said his mother. 'He wished it, but he is better where he is; he could not bear the work here.'

'No; I told him the utmost I should allow would be an exchange now and then when my curates were overdone,' said Mr. Parsons.

'And so you are quite deserted,' said Honor, feeling the more drawn towards her friends.

'Starting afresh, with a sort of honeymoon, as I tell Anne,' replied Mr. Parsons; and such a bright look passed between them, as though they were quite sufficient for each other, that Honor felt there was no parallel between their case and her own.

'Ah! you have not lost your children yet,' said Mrs. Parsons.

'They are not with me,' said Honor, quickly. 'Lucy is with her cousins, and Owen—I don't exactly know how he means to dispose of himself this vacation; but we were all to meet here.' Guessing, perhaps, that Mr. Parsons saw into her dissatisfaction, she then assumed their defence. 'There is to be a grand affair at Castle Blanch, a celebration of young Charles Charteris's marriage, and Owen and Lucy will be wanted for it.'

'Whom has he married?'

'A Miss Mendoza, an immense fortune—something in the stockbroker line. He had spent a good deal, and wanted to repair it; but they tell me she is a very handsome person, very ladylike and agreeable; and Lucy likes her greatly. I am to go to luncheon at their house to-morrow, so I shall treat you as if you were at home.'

'I should hope so,' quoth Mr. Parsons.

'Yes, or I know you would not stay here properly. I'm not alone, either. Why, where's the boy gone? I thought he was here. I have two young Fulmorts, one staying here, the other looking in from the office.'

'Fulmort!' exclaimed Mr. Parsons, with three notes of admiration at least in his voice. 'What! the distiller?'

'The enemy himself, the identical lord of gin-shops—at least his children. Did you not know that he married my next neighbour, Augusta Mervyn, and that our properties touch? He is not so bad by way of squire as he is here; and I have known his wife all my life, so we keep up all habits of good neighbourhood; and though they have brought up the elder ones very ill, they have not succeeded in spoiling this son and daughter. She is one of the very nicest girls I ever knew, and he, poor fellow, has a great deal of good in him.'

'I think I have heard William speak of a Fulmort,' said Mrs. Parsons. 'Was he at Winchester?'

'Yes; and an infinite help the influence there has been to him. I never saw any one more anxious to do right, often under great disadvantages. I shall be very glad for him to be with you. He was always intended for a clergyman, but now I am afraid there is a notion of putting him into the business; and he is here attending to it for the present, while his father and brother are abroad. I am sorry he is gone. I suppose he was seized with a fit of shyness.'

However, when all the party had been to their rooms and prepared for dinner, Robert reappeared, and was asked where he had been.

'I went to dress,' he answered.

'Ah! where do you lodge? I asked Phoebe, but she said your letters went to Whittington-street.'

'There are two very good rooms at the office which my father sometimes uses.'

Phoebe and Miss Charlecote glanced at each other, aware that Mervyn would never have condescended to sleep in Great Whittington-street. Mr. Parsons likewise perceived a straight-forwardness in the manner, which made him ready to acknowledge his fellow-Wykehamist and his son's acquaintance; and they quickly became good friends over recollections of Oxford and Winchester, tolerably strong in Mr. Parsons himself, and all the fresher on 'William's' account. Phoebe, whose experience of social intercourse was confined to the stately evening hour in the drawing-room, had never listened to anything approaching to this style of conversation, nor seen her brother to so much advantage in society. Hitherto she had only beheld him neglected in his uncongenial home circle, contemning and contemned, or else subjected to the fretting torment of Lucilla's caprice. She had never known what he could be, at his ease, among persons of the same way of thinking. Speaking scarcely ever herself, and her fingers busy with her needle, she was receiving a better lesson than Miss Fennimore had ever yet been able to give. The acquiring of knowledge is one thing, the putting it out to profit another.

Gradually, from general topics, the conversation contracted to the parish and its affairs, known intimately to Mr. Parsons a quarter of a century ago, but in which Honora was now the best informed; while Robert listened as one who felt as if he might have a considerable stake therein, and indeed looked upon usefulness there as compensation for the schemes he was resigning.

The changes since Mr. Parsons's time had not been cheering. The late incumbent had been a man whose trust lay chiefly in preaching, and who, as his health failed, and he became more unable to cope with the crying evils around, had grown despairing, and given way to a sort of dismal, callous indifference; not doing a little, because he could not do much, and quashing the plans of others with a nervous dread of innovation. The class of superior persons in trade, and families of professional men, who in Mr. Charlecote's time had filled many a massively-built pew, had migrated to the suburbs, and preserved only an office or shop in the parish, an empty pew in the church, where the congregation was to be counted by tens instead of hundreds. Not that the population had fallen off. Certain streets which had been a grief and pain to Mr. Charlecote, but over which he had never entirely lost his hold, had become intolerably worse. Improvements in other parts of London, dislodging the inhabitants, had heaped them in festering masses of corruption in these untouched byways and lanes, places where honest men dared not penetrate without a policeman; and report spoke of rooms shared by six families at once.

Mr. Parsons had not taken the cue unknowing of what he should find in it; he said nothing, and looked as simple and cheerful as if his life were not to be a daily course of heroism. His wife gave one long, stifled sigh, and looked furtively upon him with her loving eyes, in something of anxious fear, but with far more of exultation.

Yet it was in no dispirited tone that she asked after the respectable poor—there surely must be some employed in small trades, or about the warehouses. She was answered that these were not many in proportion, and that not only had pew-rents kept them out of church, but that they had little disposition to go there. They did send their children to the old endowed charity schools, but as these children grew up, wave after wave lapsed into a smooth, respectable heathen life of Sunday pleasuring. The more religious became dissenters, because the earnest inner life did not approve itself to them in Church teaching as presented to them; the worse sort, by far the most numerous, fell lower and lower, and hovered scarcely above the depths of sin and misery. Drinking was the universal vice, and dragged many a seemingly steady character into every stage of degradation. Men and women alike fell under the temptation, and soon hastened down the descent of corruption and crime.

'Ah!' said Mrs. Parsons, 'I observed gin palaces at the corner of every street.'

There was a pause. Neither her husband nor Honor made any reply. If they had done so, neither of the young Fulmorts would have perceived any connection between the gin palaces and their father's profession; but the silence caused both to raise their eyes. Phoebe, judging by her sisters' code of the becoming, fancied that their friends supposed their feelings might be hurt by alluding to the distillery, as a trade, and cast about for some cheerful observations, which she could not find.

Robert had received a new idea, one that must be put aside till he had time to look at it.

There was a ring at the door. Honor's face lighted up at the tread on the marble pavement of the hall, and without other announcement, a young man entered the room, and as she sprang up to meet him, bent down his lofty head, and kissed her with half-filial, half-coaxing tenderness.

'Yes, here I am. They told me I should find you here. Ah! Phoebe, I'm glad to see you. Fulmort, how are you?' and a well-bred shake of the hand to Mr. and Mrs. Parsons, with the ease and air of the young master, returning to his mother's house.

'When did you come?'

'Only to-day. I got away sooner than I expected. I went to Lowndes Square, and they told me I should find you here, so I came away as soon as dinner was over. They were dressing for some grand affair, and wanted me to come with them, but of course I must come to see if you had really achieved bringing bright Phoebe from her orbit.'

His simile conveyed the astronomical compliment at once to Honora and Phoebe, who were content to share it. Honora was in a condition of subdued excitement and anxiety, compared to which all other sensations were tame, chequered as was her felicity, a state well known to mothers and sisters. Intensely gratified at her darling's arrival, gladdened by his presence, rejoicing in his endowments, she yet dreaded every phrase lest some dim misgiving should be deepened, and watched for the impression he made on her friends, as though her own depended upon it.

Admiration could not but come foremost. It was pleasant to look upon such a fine specimen of manly beauty and vigour. Of unusual height, his form was so well moulded, that his superior stature was only perceived by comparison with others, and the proportions were those of great strength. The small, well-set head, proudly carried, the short, straight features, and the form of the free massive curls, might have been a model for the bust of a Greek athlete; the colouring was the fresh, healthy bronzed ruddiness of English youth, and the expression had a certain boldness of good-humoured freedom, agreeing with the quiet power of the whole figure. Those bright gray eyes could never have been daunted, those curling, merry lips never at a loss, that smooth brow never been unwelcome, those easy movements never cramped, nor the manners restrained by bashfulness.

The contrast was not favourable to Robert. The fair proportions of the one brought out the irregular build of the other; the classical face made the plain one more homely, the erect bearing made the eye turn to the slouching carriage, and the readiness of address provoked comparison with the awkward diffidence of one disregarded at home. Bashfulness and depression had regained their hold of the elder lad almost as the younger one entered, and in the changes of position consequent upon the new arrival, he fell into the background, and stood leaning, caryatid fashion, against the mantelshelf, without uttering a word, while Owen, in a half-recumbent position on an ottoman, a little in the rear of Miss Charlecote and her tea equipage, and close to Phoebe, indulged in the blithe loquacity of a return home, in a tone of caressing banter towards the first lady, of something between good-nature and attention to the latter, yet without any such exclusiveness as would have been disregard to the other guests.

'Ponto well! Poor old Pon! how does he get on? Was it a very affecting parting, Phoebe?'

'I didn't see. I met Miss Charlecote at the station.'

'Not even your eyes might intrude on the sacredness of grief! Well, at least you dried them? But who dried Ponto's?' solemnly turning on Honora.

'Jones, I hope,' said she, smiling.

'I knew it! Says I to myself, when Henry opened the door, Jones remains at home for the consolation of Ponto.'

'Not entirely—' began Honora, laughing; but the boy shook his head, cutting her short with a playful frown.

'Cousin Honor, it grieves me to see a woman of your age and responsibility making false excuses. Mr. Parsons, I appeal to you, as a clergyman of the Church of England, is it not painful to hear her putting forward Jones's asthma, when we all know the true fact is that Ponto's tastes are so aristocratic that he can't take exercise with an under servant, and the housekeeper is too fat to waddle. By the bye, how is the old thing?'

'Much more effective than might be supposed by your account, sir, and probably wishing to know whether to get your room ready.'

'My room. Thank you; no, not to-night. I've got nothing with me. What are you going to do to-morrow? I know you are to be at Charteris's to luncheon; his Jewess told me so.'

'For shame, Owen.'

'I don't see any shame, if Charles doesn't,' said Owen; 'only if you don't think yourselves at a stall of cheap jewellery at a fair—that's all! Phoebe, take care. You're a learned young lady.'

'No; I'm very backward.'

'Ah! it's the fashion to deny it, but mind you don't mention Shakespeare.'

'Why not?'

'Did you never hear of the Merchant of Venice?'

Phoebe, a little startled, wanted to hear whether Mrs. Charteris were really Jewish, and after a little more in this style, which Honor reasonably feared the Parsonses might not consider in good taste, it was explained that her riches were Jewish, though her grandfather had been nothing, and his family Christian. Owen adding, that but for her origin, she would be very good-looking; not that he cared for that style, and his manner indicated that such rosy, childish charms as were before him had his preference. But though this was evident enough to all the rest of the world, Phoebe did not appear to have the least perception of his personal meaning, and freely, simply answered, that she admired dark-eyed people, and should be glad to see Mrs. Charteris.

'You will see her in her glory,' said Owen; 'Tuesday week, the great concern is to come off, at Castle Blanch, and a rare sight she'll be! Cilly tells me she is rehearsing her dresses with different sets of jewels all the morning, and for ever coming in to consult her and Rashe!'

'That must be rather tiresome,' said Honor; 'she cannot be much of a companion.'

'I don't fancy she gets much satisfaction,' said Owen, laughing; 'Rashe never uses much "soft sawder." It's an easy-going place, where you may do just as you choose, and the young ladies appreciate liberty. By the bye, what do you think of this Irish scheme?'

Honora was so much ashamed of it, that she had never mentioned it even to Phoebe, and she was the more sorry that it had been thus adverted to, as she saw Robert intent on what Owen let fall. She answered shortly, that she could not suppose it serious.

'Serious as a churchyard,' was Owen's answer. 'I dare say they will ask Phoebe to join the party. For my own part, I never believed in it till I came up to-day, and found the place full of salmon-flies, and the start fixed for Wednesday the 24th.'

'Who?' came a voice from the dark mantelshelf.

'Who? Why, that's the best of it. Who but my wise sister and Rashe? Not a soul besides,' cried Owen, giving way to laughter, which no one was disposed to echo. 'They vow that they will fish all the best streams, and do more than any crack fisherman going, and they would like to see who will venture to warn them off. They've tried that already. Last summer what did Lucy do, but go and fish Sir Harry Buller's water. You know he's a very tiger about preserving. Well, she fished coolly on in the face of all his keepers; they stood aghast, didn't know what manner of Nixie it was, I suppose; and when Sir Harry came down, foaming at the mouth, she just shook her curls, and made him wade in up to his knees to get her fly out of a bramble!'

'That must be exaggerated,' said Robert.

'Exaggerated! Not a word! It's not possible to exaggerate Cilly's coolness. I did say something about going with them.'

'You must, if they go at all!' exclaimed Honora.

'Out of the question, Sweet Honey. They reject me with disdain, declare that I should only render them commonplace, and that "rich and rare were the gems she wore" would never have got across Ireland safe if she had a great strapping brother to hamper her. And really, as Charles says, I don't suppose any damage can well happen to them.'

Honora would not talk of it, and turned the conversation to what was to be done on the following day. Owen eagerly proffered himself as escort, and suggested all manner of plans, evidently assuming the entire direction and protection of the two ladies, who were to meet him at luncheon in Lowndes Square, and go with him to the Royal Academy, which, as he and Honora agreed, must necessarily be the earliest object for the sake of providing innocent conversation.

As soon as the clock struck ten, Robert took leave, and Owen rose, but instead of going, lingered, talking Oxford with Mr. Parsons, and telling good stories, much to the ladies' amusement, though increasing Honora's trepidation by the fear that something in his tone about the authorities, or the slang of his manner, might not give her friends a very good idea of his set. The constant fear of what might come next, absolutely made her impatient for his departure, and at last she drove him away, by begging to know how he was going all that distance, and offering to send Henry to call a cab, a thing he was too good-natured to permit. He bade good night and departed, while Mr. Parsons, in answer to her eager eyes, gratified her by pronouncing him a very fine young man.

'He is very full of spirit,' she said. 'You must let me tell you a story of him. They have a young new schoolmistress at Wrapworth, his father's former living, you know, close to Castle Blanch. This poor thing was obliged to punish a school-child, the daughter of one of the bargemen on the Thames, a huge ruffianly man. Well, a day or two after, Owen came upon him in a narrow lane, bullying the poor girl almost out of her life, threatening her, and daring her to lay a finger on his children. What do you think Owen did?'

'Fought him, I suppose,' said Mr. Parsons, judging by the peculiar delight ladies take in such exploits. 'Besides, he has sufficiently the air of a hero to make it incumbent on him to "kill some giant."'

'We may be content with something short of his killing the giant,' said Honor, 'but he really did gain the victory. That lad, under nineteen, positively beat this great monster of a man, and made him ask the girl's pardon, knocked him down, and thoroughly mastered him! I should have known nothing of it, though, if Owen had not got a black eye, which made him unpresentable for the Castle Blanch gaieties, so he came down to the Holt to me, knowing I should not mind wounds gained in a good cause.'

They wished her good night in her triumph.

The receipt of a letter was rare and supreme felicity to Maria; therefore to indite one was Phoebe's first task on the morrow; after which she took up her book, and was deeply engaged, when the door flew back, and the voice of Owen Sandbrook exclaimed, 'Goddess of the silver bow! what, alone?'

'Miss Charlecote is with her lawyer, and Robert at the office.'

'The parson and parsoness parsonically gone to study parsonages, schools, and dilapidations, I suppose. What a bore it is having them here; I'd have taken up my quarters here, otherwise, but I can't stand parish politics.'

'I like them very much,' said Phoebe, 'and Miss Charlecote seems to be happy with them.'

'Just her cut, dear old thing; the same honest, illogical, practical sincerity,' said Owen, in a tone of somewhat superior melancholy; but seeing Phoebe about to resent his words as a disrespectful imputation on their friend, he turned the subject, addressing Phoebe in the manner between teasing and flattering, habitual to a big schoolboy towards a younger child, phases of existence which each had not so long outgrown as to have left off the mutual habits thereto belonging. 'And what is bright Cynthia doing? Writing verses, I declare!—worthy sister of Phoebus Apollo.'

'Only notes,' said Phoebe, relinquishing her paper, in testimony.

'When found make a note of—Summoned by writ—temp. Ed. III.—burgesses—knights of shire. It reads like an act of parliament. Hallam's English Constitution. My eyes! By way of lighter study. It is quite appalling. Pray what may be the occupation of your more serious moments?'

'You see the worst I have with me.'

'Holiday recreation, to which you can just condescend. I say, Phoebe, I have a great curiosity to understand the Zend. I wish you would explain it to me.'

'If I ever read it,' began Phoebe, laughing.

'What, you pretend to deny? You won't put me off that way. A lady who can only unbend so far as to the English Constitution by way of recreation, must—'

'But it is not by way of recreation.'

'Come, I know my respected cousin too well to imagine she would have imposed such a task. That won't do, Phoebe.'

'I never said she had, but Miss Fennimore desired me.'

'I shall appeal. There's no act of tyranny a woman in authority will not commit. But this is a free country, Phoebe, as maybe you have gathered from your author, and unless her trammels have reached to your soul—' and he laid his hand on the book to take it away.

'Perhaps they have,' said Phoebe, smiling, but holding it fast, 'for I shall be much more comfortable in doing as I was told.'

'Indeed!' said Owen, pretending to scrutinize her as if she were something extraordinary (really as an excuse for a good gaze upon her pure complexion and limpid eyes, so steady, childlike, and unabashed, free from all such consciousness as would make them shrink from the playful look). 'Indeed! Now, in my experience the comfort would be in the not doing as you were told.'